Can't Live If Living Is Without You
by TheMollyBee
Summary: Canon until Sherlock says "Because you chose her" about Mary in S3E3. I was terrified John was going to wake up and we'd find it had all been a dream. So I wrote that. I hate the trope but it was bugging me. My apologies. John/Mary but can be read as John/Sherlock.


"You are addicted to a certain lifestyle. You're abnormally attracted to dangerous situations and people. Is it truly such a surprise that the woman you've fallen in love with conforms to that pattern?" John gapes between Sherlock and Mary for a second, his mind clouded with anger.

"She wasn't supposed to be like that. Why is she like that?" John asks, desperate, angry, confused. The last hour or so has changed his life irreparably and he's had far too many similar hours and he is so, so done with it all. It's ridiculous, it's infuriating, and he doesn't understand.

"Because you chose her." Sherlock offers as explanation, like that one short utterance sums u everything in a more than satisfactory way. John wants to murder him when he does that at the best of times, and right now the whirlwind of emotions he's caught in is suggesting brutal murder with a side of sobbing onto Sherlock's shoulder.

"What? What the hell does that even mean, Sherlock? It's my fault she turned out to be a bloody psychopath?" John demands, incredulous.

"In a manner of speaking… Not your fault, per say. Your…" Sherlock looks upset as he searches for the right word to pacify the now pacing John "Your design."

"Design? Like I created all of this? Sherlock?" Sherlock doesn't reply. John scrunches his eyes closed in annoyance, turning his back on Sherlock and Mary in an attempt to distance himself from the situation. He runs one hand over his face with a sigh and a few moments to breathe before forcing his eyes open once more to deal with the situation.

The situation.

The situation that has… gone?

John Watson stares up at a very nondescript ceiling he supposes could be for any regular room, but considering his last memory, he concludes he blacked out for some reason and was moved into Sherlock's room. The ceiling looks vaguely familiar, so it makes sense to him. He's slept in here a few times, the result of Sherlock not so accidentally drugging him every so often and being too lazy to carry him to his room so dumping him in the closest one. It seems vaguely familiar, so it must be.

He sits up in the bed feeling pain ripple through his shoulder in a way it hasn't for a long time. Perhaps Sherlock slipped him something to calm him down and he fell in a weird way. Yes, that must be it. Except his leg hurts too. And there's a cane propped up against the wall.

And this isn't Sherlock's room.

No.

This must just be a dream. But it's so real and so disgustingly familiar.

John stands up shakily, his stomach lurching as he limps to the bathroom on the other side of his tiny, empty, pre-Sherlock flat.

Standing in front of the mirror, John's jaw drops as he spies the just growing back military buzzcut on top of a face he notices is several years younger than he recognises it should be.

Pre-Sherlock flat, pre-Sherlock self… John runs to his laptop, checking the date. Oh god.

What is this dream? Is he meant to be learning something from this?

It's like some kind of warped Alice In Wonderland situation. John shakes his head at the madness. He'll wake up soon enough. This is just a wave of old memories coming to the surface in some sort of anxiety fuelled dream. He'll be fine.

He isn't waking up.

It's been hours. Probably only minutes in real life, perhaps, but it's been hours here. Hours of staring at the ceiling in an existence without Sherlock, without Mary, without all the stress of that.

Without all the excitement.

Perhaps he is addicted to the danger of that lifestyle. But what did Sherlock mean, that he'd created it all?

Wait.

Was this boring, painful dream actually real life? Had he just woken up from the best, longest, most convoluted dream of his life? Was this his real existence?

It's too… Inadequate. It can't be. It won't be.

He'll just find Sherlock now he's awake. He'll contact him and they can move into 221B and he can have everything back, and make improvements since he knows exactly what will happen, right?

A quick google search to find Sherlock's contact details proves that it won't be that easy, not by any stretch of the imagination.

Sherlock doesn't exist.

How can he not exist? It isn't possible to imagine such vivid detail. He can so clearly picture what Mary looks like when she smiles. He knows exactly how Sherlock smells. That life could not have all been a dream.

A hallucination brought on by a combination of PTSD medication, sleeping pills and a few days without sleep? Again, too much detail involved.

Perhaps it was a past life that he's suddenly recalled in his reincarnated form? Again, no, as that life continued from this one, and was in this time period…

If anything, it was more like he'd died and gone to heaven then. Sherlock was everything he'd needed in his life and he'd just appeared in a stroke of luck, in the best coincidence that ever happened.

Was that it? Was his life with Sherlock and Mary part of his… after life? And what was this?

A second chance?

Was this a restart, so he could go back and rework things so he never met the psychopaths that broke his heart multiple times? No thank you! Sherlock drove him crazy, but he wouldn't have it any other way, not really! And Mary… Well he didn't know what the hell that was, but he had to hear her side of the story first.

He doesn't want to change a thing. He loves Mary, and no matter what, there's a little baby Watson involved now.

Forget this shadow of a life.

"There's no place like home." John says aloud to the oh-so empty flat, making his decision.

He's waking up now. He has to. And if this him truly awake, he doesn't want it.

He goes to the drawer where he keeps his gun, puts it into position against his temple, and wakes up.

He turns around, seething with rage once more because none of this makes any bloody sense, but with the knowledge that he is forgiving the hell out of Mary and never, ever intending to exist without Sherlock in his life again.

For now, he yells.


End file.
